


Mental Travel

by ModernWizard



Series: Alison Wonderland [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: Alison goes into the Master's mind, Alison meets them all, And then the Master goes in her mind, Gen, Mind Library, Mind Palace, My favorite is the Little Witch, The Master has a mind palace but Alison has a mind library, all of Alison's selves, the Master's selves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 02:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14392419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard
Summary: Alison Cheney's robot -- "the Magister" to her, "the Master" to everyone else -- is teaching her the art of mental self-defense so that she will never again have her mind invaded the way that it was by the Shalka and then by a psychic vampire. As an introduction to mental shielding, they each take tours of each other's minds. Each fear what the other will do when they encounter the most shameful and frightening parts of each other's minds.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This multimedia work combines traditional textual storytelling with graphic novel elements. The chapters introducing the travel into the Master's mind and then the travel into Alison's take the form of digital renders. I customized the human figures and sets, then rendered them, all within Daz Studio software.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison and the Magister are preparing to take a tour of his mind palace. He begins to review the important rules for mental travel. Alison, however, is way more interested in the book portal to the Crab Nebula.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Magister delivers the most important edict for mental travel. Meanwhile, Alison concocts a super awesome scheme.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison lobs the Marquis de Sade's skull into the Crab Nebula. Why is she looking so smug about this?!

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison explains what she was doing while the Magister was listing off rules, does magical girl poses, and generally acts like a smart arse. >:}

 


	5. The Master's Tale Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison and the Magister's mental travel continues in a fairy tale from his point of view. The story begins with the Master of Pain meeting his Apprentice.

Once upon a time there was a villain who abhorred pain. He felt so much of others’ distress that he barely knew his own mind. He began to hate other people for their intrusions into his head, so he smothered their screams by forcing them to obey his edicts. With all those people at his control, he constructed an orderly and rational universe where he was unmolested. Now that his mind was calm and safe, he proclaimed himself  _ the Master of Pain. _

 

The Master of Pain ruined so many people universally that he was seized and imprisoned, deprived of his power. Confined against his will, he was now open to exploitation, no longer the master of himself. In other words, he was just like one of his victims. 

 

When he realized what he had become, a cold shock seized him, rattling from head to sole. An emptiness roared within him. He felt the terror that he had inflicted upon so many. He was crushed beneath the pain that he had tried to purge from his life. 

 

He had failed. A great weariness fell upon him with this thought. He had wished to be the Master of Pain, but the pain had mastered him. Now that he remembered what it was like to grieve, he could no longer cause such grief to others. He must change. But how?

 

As he wondered, a Warrior entered his cell. “Wizard of Pain,” she said, “teach me to have power over people, for I wish to remake the universe into one without suffering.”

 

“You must be desperate indeed,” he said, “if you seek me, of all people, for these lessons.”

 

“I have been fighting all my life,” she said with the deepest of sighs, “against people who would objectify and hurt me and others like me. Sometimes I win, and then everyone is kind to one another. They mend what they have broken, and they cause no more hurt. But I lose more and more these days. I try to save everyone, but still I am overcome, run through by the meanness of the world. You are wise in the ways of breaking people, so you can teach me to be impenetrable. Then I can make the world good without succumbing to its pain.”

 

He arched his eyebrows. “You won’t learn how to be good from a villain.” 

 

“I am already good,” she replied, staring at him with her arms folded. “I want to be strong and right. That is what you will teach me.”

 

The Master of Pain considered. The Warrior, though similar to him in her fierce determination, differed from him at her core. She cared about others as he never had. He ignored his sense of empathy, at least until his imprisonment, while her empathy guided all her actions.

 

Despite her compassion, the Warrior was now exhausted, disgusted by her antagonists. Her revulsion might transform into contempt and hatred. She would become as the Master of Pain had been, a creator of misery instead of peace. He could not permit her brilliance to be wasted in villainy, not when she was destined to rule well and justly. 

 

“Obey me of your free and unconstrained volition,” he said, “and I will have you as my apprentice.”

 

“Protect me and hold me fast,” she said, “and I will have you as my teacher.”

 

Thus it was that the Master of Pain and the Apprentice made a deal.


	6. The Master's Tale Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master of Pain and his new Apprentice enter his mind palace. There they meet all of his selves, including his most embarrassing. For some reason, his Apprentice likes them best.

“If you would rule the outer universe,” the Master of Pain told his Apprentice, “then first you must govern the universe within yourself. I have made a fortress of my mind, so I will take you there. You will learn from its construction something of self-mastery. I warn you, though,” he said, holding up his hand, “you will mislike what you see, for I am made of cruel people who have fed on pain.”

 

“I adore you for who you are now,” said his Apprentice without hesitation, “not for who you were.”

 

“I am yet who I was, though,” he said. “Everyone that I have ever been still lives in me.”

 

“Then I shall meet them all,” she declared, “and determine if you are worthy of love.”

 

The Master of Pain led the Apprentice within his mind to meet his selves, all except the ones that he wished to keep secret. His mind palace was an endless place of perfectly straight lines and exact measurements, cool, echoing halls, and vaulted rooms of tightly fitted black marble. Each of his selves lived in their own apartments, preoccupied with their own private plots. Keller, the sharp dresser, designed collar points both fashionable and weaponized. The Veneficus, who thought only of vengeance, calculated effort-to-agony ratios for various types of assassination. Tremas, always untethered from reality, almost set off his latest invention, fireworks of acid and knives. Bruce, a slimy person who broke people’s necks with bare hands, attempted to sneak up on the Master and try a new technique. Septimus, as voiceless and insubstantial as a ghost, haunted the halls behind them. 

 

The Apprentice addressed the Master of Pain’s selves with confidence and candor. She admired Keller’s sense of style. She argued against the Veneficus’ maximization of agony. She suggested that Tremas deploy his gunpowder-based amusements out of doors. She glowered at Bruce until he promised that he would never try to kill anyone again. She communicated with Septimus in sign language and gesture, and he brightened and solidified in happiness. They were wholly enthralled by someone who treated them as equals and demanded the same in kind. The Master of Pain hoped that his Apprentice would be so absorbed that she would not notice the selves he did not want her to see.

 

But she did, of course. When they stepped from Septimus’ rooms into the long, lofty hall, she narrowed her eyes at the Master of Pain. “I don’t think I have met you entirely. I catch sight of figures out of my peripheral vision, but they dart away when I turn my head. Who are they?”

 

What could he say of them -- the Little Witch and the Cat? They were obstreperous, impetuous, and immature. “They are an embarrassment.”

 

“I heard that!” The Little Witch leapt from the shadows. “I’m not an embarrassment. I’m amazing because I’m not afraid of anything, not even the truth. And the truth is that you’re the embarrassment because you’re mean!” She kicked the Master of Pain hard in the shin. As he doubled over, his Apprentice shrieked.

 

The Master of Pain straightened, rubbing his leg, and understood why the Apprentice had screamed. She lay on the marble floor with the large, lithe form of the Cat, his other most disgraceful self, on top of her. The Cat butted his head against the Apprentice many times, then announced, “There! You belong to me. Now rub my ears. Only you must do so anti-clockwise, twenty-five times per ear, or else I shall swat you.”

 

“Leave, both of you!” the Master of Pain said to the Little Witch and the Cat.

 

“Awww, no, it’s all right.” The Apprentice was petting the Cat as ordered.

 

“Go away,” said the Cat to the Master of Pain, purring loudly. “We’re having fun.”

 

The Little Witch hugged the Apprentice and danced around her. “I love you. Let’s be best friends!” 

 

The Apprentice laughed. “I don’t even know you.”

 

“I’m the Little Witch,” said the Little Witch, “and I know you. You’re brave and strong and powerful. You’re even better than the Master of Pain because you like to play with children and cats. You’re magical too because you make him smile. We’ll have so much fun together, you and me and the Cat! I promise that I’ll never kick you in the shins.” 

 

The Apprentice squealed with delight and looked up at the Master of Pain. “Why didn’t I meet these two before?”

 

“They are heedless.” He could not meet her eyes. “They do not know how to master themselves.”

 

“They are true and passionate and open-hearted,” she said. “They’re the best parts of you.”

 

“Of course I am,” said the Cat, folding his front paws one over the other. “We felines are superior creatures.”

 

“See? I told you so.” The Little Witch stuck her tongue out at the Master of Pain, and he had nothing to say.


	7. The Master's Tale Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Apprentice tells the Master of Pain what she learned from the tour of his head, which is not what he expected her to learn.

When they returned to the outer world, the Master of Pain sat his Apprentice in his lap and asked her what she had learned from his mind palace. “Well, I’m certainly not going to organize my brain like yours,” she responded, curling herself against him.

 

“Why not?” he cried, arching his neck back from her.

 

“You keep all your selves separate,” she pointed out. “They each do what they think is most important, without talking to each other, and you only talk to them when you tell them not to cause too much chaos. Plus you pretend that the Little Witch and the Cat don’t even exist. Denial and suppression are highly ineffective organizational principles,” she informed him, crossing her arms. “When I master my mind, I’ll get to know everyone. We’ll have regular councils.”

 

“A council of Masters of Pain.” He rolled his eyes. “I can just see it now: Tremas building death traps, Bruce wringing necks, and the Little Witch kicking everyone.”

 

“I think you can handle it,” she said with some wryness, hugging him. “After all, you’re the Master of Pain.”

 

He said nothing, as always, when the unwanted truth confronted him. He envisioned his mind palace as an edifice of calm, clarity, and control. She, though, saw it only as a mess of confusion and distraction, and she was right. He now practiced upon his selves the same suppression and denial that he once visited upon other people. He had been fooling himself again. He was neither making nor sustaining peace; he was only ignoring pain. What tutelage did he have for his Apprentice then? Of what was he the Master?

 

He brushed his hand against her cheek so that she swiveled toward him. “I believe you might teach me something,” he said, “and I wish to know how your mind works. Will you let me in?”

 

She hesitated, her eyelids going down halfway. “Yes...but I’ll understand if you run from me. I am made of wretchedness, and my past is shameful.”

 

“Yet now you are my Apprentice,” he reminded her, “my partner and my pride.”

 

“You won’t be proud when you know me,” she muttered.

 

“I shall be the judge of that,” he said.


	8. The Master's Tale Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master of Pain meets everyone in the Apprentice's mind library, but it's the two neglected selves that interest him the most. He performs a magical transplant that may or may not work.

And so she introduced him to the people that she was. Unlike his selves, who cherished their isolation, hers all lived and worked in a temple-like library. Sunlight streamed through the glass dome overhead. Bright tapestries of the heroines of Greco-Roman mythology insulated the walls. Despite the atrium’s height, it was warm and cozy, full of books and conversation.

 

Each of her selves had their own study area, but they played together. Ali C., the quick-witted nine-year-old, and Sunny, fifteen and boundlessly creative, interrupted one another with their brainstorms. They were co-writing a historically revisionist fairy tale/political manifesto, with doodles and lists overflowing two tables. Clarissima, who was twenty-one, the guardian and dominatrix with an armored heart, spoke more earnestly to Errabunda, who was twenty-four and capable of directing everything but her own life. They were discussing the Golden Rule, which Errabunda said should be universally applicable and Clarissima said would never be.

 

The Master of Pain got to know them all. He bowed to each of them and told them stories. They were enchanted, and so was he.

 

“And now it’s time to go,” said the Apprentice suddenly, but the Master of Pain heard crying. She wouldn’t tell him who it was, though; she just mentioned something about  _ the whiny kid. _

 

He followed the sound and came to a room far removed from the rest of her selves. The door was locked. When he wrenched the knob to open it, the Apprentice gasped as if someone had seized her. 

 

Broken shelves of rotten books slumped about the room, and the air was stuffy and fungal. Sitting in a dusty corner was a girl of about five years. “Who are you?” he asked, squatting down so that he was on her level. “And why are you crying?”

 

The girl sneezed on the dust and wiped her runny nose on the back of her hand. “I’m Little Al. Will you play with me? I know lots of good games and stories. But I’m stuck here, and I don’t think anyone likes me because no one has come to get me out.”

 

He regarded Little Al. She looked like the Little Witch, the sort of wild and messy child that ambushed people and clung to them. Perhaps, more than someone to play with, she needed someone to hug. “Shall I hold you f -- oh!” He opened his arms, but Little Al was already hanging onto him before he finished his offer. He lifted her as he stood, and she leaned against his chest with a sigh, then began sucking her thumb.

 

The Apprentice cringed, flaring her nose. “So needy!” she said under her breath, turning away.

 

“She is merely full of affection,” the Master of Pain said, “with no one to bestow it upon.”

 

“We’re done here.” The Apprentice turned on her heel. “It’s time to go back to the outer world.”

 

The Master of Pain did not hear her, though, because he recognized another of his Apprentice’s secret selves hidden in the moldering library. She was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and she lay completely still, shrouded in shadows. “Wait. Who is this?”

 

“That’s Victa,” said the Apprentice in a flat voice without glancing at her. “She’s dead.”

 

Little Al took her thumb out of her mouth. “No, she’s not! She’s like Snow White. She just needs someone to love her. You’re a good witch,” she said to the Master of Pain. “Kiss her!”

 

“Actually,” he corrected her, “I’m really not a good -- “

 

“Yes, you are a good witch,” said Little Al. “I love you.”

 

No one had ever said that to him before, not even his inevitable spouse. “Well, naturally you love me,” he said, “but logically your conclusion doesn’t follow from -- “

 

“So you’re a good witch.” Little Al put her thumb back in her mouth, and that was that.

 

The Master of Pain knelt beside Victa, touching her chilly cheek. The Apprentice hid her face in her hands and peeked through her fingers. “She’s practically a corpse,” she said. “How can you bear to do that?”

 

“She is you, my dear,” he said, “and I am not afraid of you.” 

 

He set Little Al down and examined Victa more closely. Where her heart should have been there was only a raw red void. She needed much more than a kiss to come back. And so, because they were in the Apprentice’s mind, where such things were possible, the Master of Pain reached into his own chest. 

 

His bare muscles and bones shuddered as they met the assault of the open air. Though he had made sacrifices for his inevitable spouse, he had never done anything quite like this before. Every fiber of him shook, for this was dangerous. He was going against a lifetime of safety by opening himself to his Apprentice. He wanted to stop just so that the pain would end, but Victa, he knew, hurt more than he, and he wanted to make her happy. He snapped all the strings on one of his hearts that kept it safe within his body, withdrew it, and placed it inside Victa.

 

The Master of Pain waited, trembling. He expected Victa to reject his gift, for his were hearts of hurt and hatred. They were not fit for someone as kind as his Apprentice. Perhaps his impulsive gesture would not save Victa at all. Maybe she was only sickening further.

 

He reached to retrieve his heart, but then the wound in Victa’s core closed quickly, and she took the Master of Pain’s heart as her own. She opened her eyes and said, “Ah! Thank you, my good wizard. You are a powerful conjuror indeed to raise me from my nightmare.”

 

He bowed to her and gave her his hand so that she could stand. Then he turned to the Apprentice, who stood apart with her shoulders hunched and her head hung low. “My dear,” he said, “Victa is alive.”

 

“She was abused,” said the Apprentice in a voice without inflection. “She was hurt. She was conquered.”

 

“Perhaps,” he said, “but now she endures. Why would you hide these selves of yours?”

 

“They’re too open,” she said. “They feel too much, and they have no common sense.”

 

“But they are the best of you,” he said, lifting her face toward his. “They are strong and honest, hopeful and persistent despite hardship, imaginative believers in fairy tales and fantasy.”

 

The Apprentice stood in silence for a while, and then she wept because she had no answer for the Master of Pain. Finally the two of them came out from her head, and they each held each other fast -- all of their selves. She sobbed in his arms.


	9. The Master's Tale Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master of Pain and his Apprentice teach each other a difficult lesson.

The Master of Pain broke open when his Apprentice cried. Her pain penetrated him and washed through all his thoughts, overwhelming him. Would her grief leave him empty, as the grief of other people had so many times before? 

 

His fear sliced time into sharp instants, each of which transfixed him with a piece of new, clear knowledge. He had been wrong. Mastery did not entail the management of life down to the minutest detail. Mastery meant rather the wisdom of choosing to rule or to serve as necessary. It meant learning when to maintain control and when to yield it. 

 

And pain was not something that could be fully quashed or shunned. Some of it was inevitable, a fact of life that no one could flee. If one could accept its inevitability, one might even find joy in submission to that shaking expectancy. 

 

So the Master of Pain and his Apprentice gave up their desire to control everything. They opened themselves to each other, and their hearts cracked. They felt pain, but not the pain of an unwanted assault. This was a pain that they chose, for it made everything sharper and brighter, fiercer and more beautiful. They folded one another close so that they each did not tremble to pieces. 

 

And when they were done shivering, a warm languor filled them. They had each survived their fear, coming through it to a stillness wider and deeper than the entire universe. He had found peace, and he was at long last the Master of Pain.


End file.
